Comments on January 2010 Survey Question #5

@ clintfsu813: You could assume that keeping Melky means no Javy. Or, you could also assume that the players you gave up for Curtis, might have brought Javy, if you don’t trade Cabrera and don’t trade for Granderson. There’s lots of assuming that could be done here…

Even – too many caveats here, the main one being Javy Vazquez, who I feel is a huge piece this year. I have a gut feeling that Grandy does very well in NY. Johnson not so much, hoping for a pleasant surprise.

We are only 85 or so days removed from a championship so I chose # 2 because I trust them to come through. The people in #1, except for Gardner and disregard Johnson played with Yankees some time back as I will not count that, have not proved anything to me as a Yankee. All you can say about the latter discussed group is you hope they do well but in #2 I know they will compete and be successful because they have proved it.

wish there were more options here. assuming melky still nets vazquez, and assuming we can’t have more than one of matsui/johnson/damon (meaning we’ll assume we are still signing a cheap LF like winn) i would rather have:

granderson/cheap LF-winn/garnder and then either matsui or damon on a one year deal over johnson. damon becomes especially attractive to me because he can enter the season as your primary DH on paper but can also still play the field at the position that we are weakest, meaning you take less of a hit when you want to DH other people. now, when we DH rodriguez, for example, you have to take johnson out of the lineup, and deal with both rodriguez’s replacement at 3rd and gardner/winn in left. with damon, you DH rodriguez, but you don’t lose damon’s bat because he goes to left, and all you have to deal with is rodriguez’s replacement. you can go around and do this with virtually every position. with johnson this only works for teixeira. i like johnson, and i know his OBP is through the roof, and i’m also not sure how much of a difference this type of thing makes over a full season. even still, i’m just concerned the yankees are losing a little bit too much in the way of guys who are proven to make plays in key spots in both damon and matsui despite johnson’s clear on-base/pitch count working abilities.